Anthony Barkow, executive director of the Law School’s Center on the Administration of Criminal Law, is in Guantanamo this week observing and analyzing military commission hearings as a volunteer consultant and human rights observer for Human Rights First, the international human rights organization.
Barkow will watch the hearings of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Mohammed Jawad, Ahmed al Darbi, and Ali Hamza al-Bahlul, and his observations will be posted on the Human Rights First blog.
The alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, or KSM as he is known, is thought to have had or confessed to a role in many of the most significant terrorist plots in the last 20 years.
Jawad faces life in prison on charges that he threw a grenade at a passing American convoy six years ago when he was 16 years old.
Al Darbi is the brother-in-law of one of the 9/11 hijackers attackers and was allegedly involved the plot.
One of the first prisoners at Guantanamo, Al-Bahlul’s case was ultimately thrown out when the Supreme Court declared the initial military commissions unlawful, but the government announced new charges against him before the new military commissions on this year.
Barkow will analyze the hearings with particular focus on the contrasts between them and what would occur if the cases were brought in a United States federal district court.
Read Barkow’s comments on the Human Rights First blog
Read Barkow's blog on Jurist